Wish
by AmberLeaves
Summary: Kaoru is a magical being, volunteering to be a Wish to protect her family. After centuries of confinement, she is released into the human world only to discover her own world is crumbling apart. KxK rating subject to change. Rated for light swearing.
1. Prologue Part I

_Cherries-O!  
Cherries ripe all ripe,  
round and sound ripe cherries,  
fine Duke Cherries,  
...only five-pence a pound cherries ripe,  
Cherries ripe all ripe...Cherries O!_  
- Cherries Market Cry 

Kaoru waited.

And desperately wanted a cherry.

Her bubble, a tiny capsule that sometimes seemed to compress her naked body into the center even more, had been inactive for 3 centuries now, but still, she waited.

Her friends had felt the pulse of their connections with their caller and responded in a heartbeat, yet Kaoru's pulse never came.

Being patient was not in her nature, but over the years she developed a strong tolerance for waiting. She only replied to one unique person, like the millions of her kind. Sighing, Kaoru curled up in her prison, fiddling with the rope of ki that she would follow to her master and settled for counting the number of chain links on it.

As Kaoru counted the links again (84 so far), she could feel a faint tingling at the back of her head. Dismissing this as just a simple headache, she examined the chain of ki once more. (94… or was it 92?) Then she felt it.

The pulse.

It traveled around the bubble as a flash of colors, activating the trigger that told guards that another would soon have to take her place. She understood what the tingling sensation at the back of her head meant now, that the bomb that had been implanted into the base of her skull finally scuttled off her head to a crack at the bottom of the bubble.

Grinning widely to herself, she felt for it again, pleased to find that a steady beat of pulses practically leaped from the chain (she was sure that there were 94 now). She took a deep breath, and slowly, proudly, walked out of her bubble into the human world.

Volunteering to be a Wish had finally paid off.

* * *

Once upon a time Kaoru walked freely. She was only a small child back then; a child of around 10 or 11 that her parents had treasured her dearly. Sure, she didn't act like a girl and more often than not came up on top in a tussle, but Kaoru their only girl. Looks of love and tenderness made their way to her often, but sometimes, when the weather was dreary and their tiny apartment dark as their world's corrupt government, her mother would hold Kaoru tight in her arms and look down at her with deep, sorrowful and sometimes even angered eyes.

These moments puzzled Kaoru.

After all, didn't she have everything she already wanted? Her three older brothers played with her often and made sure no other boys teased her. As long as Kaoru didn't beat them up first. Most of her childhood memories consisted of sparring in her family dojo with either Yahiko or Aoshi. Sano claimed he was more of a 'fist to fist' person. He was also the only person that managed to snatch her something from the human world.

"What is it Sano-nii?" she asked, squinting at the box of cherries. "They look so…so… " her face scrunched up in thought, trying to think of the best way to describe those circle-y thingies.

"Red?" said Aoshi, coming up behind her with a shinai in hand. He placed the practice sword carefully onto a rack and picked up his kodachi.

"Red?" Kaoru asked curiously, testing the word out carefully on her lips. "What's that?"

"It's the color of these cherries, Kao." Sano said, patting her sleek black hair and setting the rest of his brown parcels on the ground.

Kaoru stared blankly up at him. "Color?" She started to look cross. Aoshi knelt down beside her, cold eyes slightly warming at her annoyed expression. He never talked to anyone, even the rest of his family. The only exception happened to be Kaoru.

"Color is something they have in the human world." He explained. "Now eat, before the color fades away." With that he climbed up the stairs that led to the attic where he meditated.

With a suspicious glare at Sano, who merely winked at her, she plopped one of the cherries into her mouth.

Her eyes grew round with wonder. "Oh," she breathed. "This is _nice_." Sano rolled his eyes and picked up the rest of his boxes. As he strolled out of the dojo to their apartment, he could hear sounds of Kaoru devouring the cherries greedily.

Seconds later (the only trace of cherries were being licked off her fingers), Kaoru put a finger on her chin. 'What is this human world Sano talked about?' she contemplated. She thought. She analyzed. No answer came to her. With a defeated sigh, Kaoru picked up her shinai and whacked Yahiko with it, who must've thought she couldn't hear him thumping around behind her back.

"Busu," he muttered under his breath. "I almost had ya this time!"

Kaoru cocked a hand on her hips. The disapproving frown on her face was so motherly that it was a wonder that Yahiko was older than her by 3 years.

"I'm a better ki sensor than that, you know. Plus, you're pathetic at hiding your ki. Aoshi-nii is much better at it than you." She reprimanded haughtily.

"That's cuz he's trainin t'be a ninja." He told her. That earned him another whack to the head. Ah, the shame of being beat up by his younger sister…

"And stop talking like your still on the streets!" she scolded.

He mock bowed. "My apologies, Kaoru-dono, please forgive your humble servant."

She arched an eyebrow. "That wasn't even sarcastically funny."

He scratched his head somewhat sheepishly. "Hey, I tried," and walked up the stairs. When he was around the top, he called that dinner was ready, hoping that he was close enough to Aoshi's room for him to hear. One of the first rules he had learned as a part of the family was never to go into Aoshi's room. Ever.

As Kaoru walked to the apartment building, she remembered the human world. What a great place it must be, with the food and colors, too!

From that day on, Kaoru had a longing for two things: The human world and cherries.

But mostly cherries.

* * *

AN

blink blink. This is so going in a major overhaul once i get into the story a bit more...

But still. I'll probably have no audience at all, and I'm also probably talking to myself. This is very depressing.

wanders over to TV and brightens up

oooo, mulan is on! I'll watch with the little kids and pretend I'm bored!


	2. Prologue Part II

Standard disclaimers apply.

Grr… I hate writing that for some reason.

_As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it. Buddy Hackett_

The first time Kaoru heard of magic was when she was 15, running an errand for her mother to receive food from the government.

Because so much of the country's money was invested into their already massive military, food was given out regularly in small rations, depending on the size of the family. It was a quick, efficient process, but anyone who missed their rations would probably go hungry for days, sometimes even weeks. This also proved to be a painful type of population control.

Death by starvation was not a pretty sight.

Kaoru walked down the street, empty bucket swinging in hand, she noticed that the city was eerily quiet. Like the silence before a storm, She dismissed this as the regular midday silence. After all, shouldn't everyone be at work? Children as young as her, even adults didn't walk in the public streets without a solid reason.

Kaoru turned the corner toward the rations station. Her family knew the people who worked there fairly well, so they could be trusted to tell them the correct day to come for food.

She smiled politely up at Soujiro and handed him her ticket. Soujiro took it with a nod and passed it through a machine to gain access to the safe of their province's food. The government claimed that these machines were expensive, high-tech equipment that came from the future of the human world.

Kaoru thought it was crap.

'Sou treasures that damn thing,' she thought as she waited. 'So I should probably keep my mouth shut for now. He knows it's annoying, though.'

The machine gave a loud, obnoxious shriek, signaling that Soujiro's time was almost up in the safe. They both winced, and Soujiro quickly snatched the rest of the brown packs up and hurried out, slamming the door behind him.

As he placed the packs of rations into Kaoru's outstretched bucket, he whispered quietly, "Avoid the main street when you go back home. I heard some men talking about a fight going on there around now."

Kaoru looked at him, surprised. "Since when did you listen to old men's gossip?" she asked curiously.

Soujiro blushed and muttered under his breath, "They're not that old."

With a giggle she picked the bucket up. "I'll be fine. Promise!" shrugging the warning off her shoulders, she walked out the door.

She glared at the bucket that held all the food. Why did it have to be so godamn _heavy_? This probably meant that there wouldn't be another drop-off from the food carriages for some time. Sighing, Kaoru picked up the bucket with a grunt, and started walking toward the main road.

Kaoru was concentrating so hard on keeping the food steady that she almost passed the fight. Gasping, she stopped abruptly and quickly spun around, striding over to the crowd and shouts. Without another thought she slipped the bucket into her sleeve.

When Kaoru thought about this later, she realized there was no way she could fit that heavy bucket into the sleeve of her threadbare gi without ripping it, let alone without anything falling out.

Taking a deep breath, Kaoru closed her eyes and barreled to the front. Opening them cautiously, she found herself near the front with a clear view of what caught the crowd's attention.

Blood ran down the officer's katana as he swung it lazily over the boy's trembling body. The boy laid facedown on his stomach, a constant stream of blood running from his arm as he struggled to get up. The officer laughed cruelly at his efforts, and whipped around to face the crowd. The area he faced took an involuntary step back.

"This," he announced, pointing his sword at the boy. "This is what happens when you defy our great government!"

Suddenly the officer tensed and glanced over the crowd, as if searching for the source of his discomfort. His eyes lingered over Kaoru, flinching slightly as he did so. "Let this be a lesson to you all," He added hastily, and strode through the

crowd, setting a brisk pace toward the main police checkpoint. There was something he needed to discuss with the chief of police.

Everyone quickly dispersed after that, murmurings just a white noise in the background as they hurried back to their respectful places. Kaoru, however, crept hesitantly to the injured boy.

"Will you be alright?" she asked him, glancing at the deep gash he had on his arm.

He glanced at her, surprised that someone would take the time over him. He was under even her, a child, after all. "I'll be fine." He assured her.

Then, wiping his hand on his indigo hakama, he pulled his reserve of energy to his wound to form a clear bubble of ki around it. Gritting his teeth, he delicately took hold of the skin around the wound and pulled, wincing as he did so. With a gasp, he jerked his hand out.

Kaoru ogled at him, amazed. She opened her mouth to say something when the boy held up a finger. Her mouth closed instantly. She had never followed directions with that speed before, not even if the orders came from Aoshi.

The boy's hand hovered over the bubble of ki, palm facing towards his skin. He took a deep breath and exhaled, sinking the bubble back into his skin. The skin he had pulled out into the ki bubble settled gently over the wound, no trace that the wound has ever pierced his skin, with the exception of all the blood that covered his gi.

Government law stated that all citizens, regardless of age or size, would wear a plain white gi, pure as a blank slate, and a black hakama everywhere or suffer the punishment.

The boy looked as if he was already in great pain so Kaoru rushed to get off as much of the blood off his gi without staining his blotchy gi. She knew from personal experience that getting blood off white clothes was hard. She had spent hours scrubbing her clothes after a spastic nosebleed.

"Is there anywhere I can take you?" she asked him, forcing him to lean his body weight against her.

His eyes half-closed he answered sleepily,"There's a non-government clinic near here. It's in that church, the one that wasn't demolished in the old area of the city."

She almost fell over from shock. Non-government buildings were practically illegal, and if there was a non government building, the owner would need thousands of permits, all ridiculously expensive…

Kaoru tried to determine the quickest way to the church but still avoid major roads. After all, she did live in that part of the city before her family was evacuated from their dojo.

'No buildings that weren't government owned', she remembered the government official saying in a monotonous voice. Even so, he had fingered the hilt of his katana, as if daring them to put up a fight.

Kaoru looked skeptically at the dilapidated church. "You're sure this is the right place?" The boy glared at her and she backed off.

"Mou, mou." She grumbled, glancing around nervously. She could've sworn she heard someone scuttling around, but there were always some idiot boys who dared each other to go here. They solemnly swore to her that ghosts stuck to restricted areas in the city. Like here, for instance.

Kaoru walked into the church, calling awkwardly,"Is…ummm… Megumi-dono here? There's a Himura Kenshin here that was hurt-"she was cut off when a young woman peeked out from behind a thick, stone wall. Her face brimmed with annoyance and a hint of worry.

"I'm performing a life-threatening surgery here!" the woman yelled irritably at Kenshin. Then in a gentler tone, she told Kaoru, "Go up the stairs and place him in the bed near the back. He just needs to sleep."

While Kaoru struggled to drag Kenshin up the stairs, he had woken up blearily. He slowly shifted his weight to slowly numbing legs. He glanced at Kaoru a weary look in his eyes.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked quietly.

Kaoru stared at him for a moment before continuing up the stairs. "My father taught me to always help one in need, even if you do not hurt the source of the pain."

"But I'm a Wish!" he protested weakly as they reached the top. "I don't deserve your help."

"Every deserves help." She said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Some just choose to reject it."

Their conversation ended as she helped him get into bed, but the questions kept on coming. Actually, he only needed to ask one question to send her running.

"Isn't your family worried about you?"

AN: whew, I finished that one just a day after posting the story! There's going to be three parts in the prologue, so the next chapter will bring us up to speed. When school starts again I won't be able to update a lot, probably just one-shots and stuff…but come on people! give me some inspiration!


End file.
